


Weakness

by Valmouth



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: M/M, Secret Relationship, Weakness, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 15:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weakness, and Marcone had stiffened in spite of himself, his instincts, his training. Because Vadderung had earned it, and because he could do nothing less when it was about Harry Dresden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weakness

Vadderung knows, and doesn’t approve.

Marcone appreciates that. The All-Father is many things including older and wiser, and more than that he has been an ally. One a plain-vanilla mortal, as Molly Carpenter puts it, appreciates when lost in a world he has no context for. A world he has no real power in.

“A word of advice, Marcone,” Vadderung had said abruptly, “Ah, for free.”

The Baron had dipped his head, all polite enquiry.

“This path your feet are on will create difficulties you cannot begin to fathom.”

“I walk many paths,” Marcone had replied, lips twisting wryly, “Can your free advice extend to which one I should re-examine?”

Vadderung had not smiled back. Far more effective than any warnings. Then he had rumbled, “The Winter Knight is a powerful and enigmatic servitor of the Winter Court. It would be a shame to see his talents turned against your weak side.”

Weakness.

And Marcone had stiffened. In spite of himself, his instincts, his training, his self-control. Because Vadderung had earned it, and because he could do nothing less when it was about Harry Dresden.

“I have given the Winter Court no reason to see me as a hostile force.”

“There are many things immortals see as a hostile force.”

There was an odd look in the All-Father’s eyes but then the subject had returned to other matters. To questions of alliance, to the complicated dance that was the exchange of information; payments rendered and totalled before money ever changed hands.

They had talked business until there was nothing more to say. At which point the Baron of Chicago had risen from his chair, taken a civil and respectful leave, and moved to the door.

This was when Vadderung had asked, “How long?”

Marcone had let the question soak through him, into his blood and his bones, and there were two answers he could have given, one of which was ‘years’. “Four months,” he’d said. He had dared to turn his head, to meet the challenge head-on. “I will not end this for any reason except personal inclination.”

Vadderung had said nothing, but Marcone had finally recognised the odd look for what it was – sympathy.

“I don’t involve myself in mortal affairs that do not concern me, Baron.”

“I will ensure this remains one of those affairs.”

He’d left that day with the weight of Vadderung’s judgement heavy in his throat, in the pit of his stomach. Trembling in the fists he hadn’t realised he had clenched until the door was shut and he was expected to wear his mask for the public.

He had done so then; he does so now.

He stands in the Winter Court against Gard’s advice – and Vadderung’s advice through her – and he watches the unnatural whirl of sidhe dancers.

He’s never been religious, and carries only vague childhood memories of the old lady across the stained corridor with her numerous crosses and saints and scapula, mumbling about Hellfire and whores behind his mother’s back.

The Winter Knight met him on his arrival at Arctis Tor, grey-tinged beneath his winter pallor, something wild and panicked in the depths of his eyes.

“If you want to walk back out unharmed,” he’d grated, “Don’t eat anything, don’t drink anything. Don’t accept anything from anyone, even if your ass is on fire and they offer to piss on you. Burn, Marcone, and you might survive this.”

‘ _Whores burn in the fires of hell_ ’ and ‘ _don’t accept candy from strangers, Johnny.’_

_‘Don’t talk to nobody, don’t look at nobody. Can you do that for me? Good boy, Johnny. Good boy.’_

And when he was eight- ‘ _Shut your eyes, baby. It’s okay. It’s okay. Mommy’s fine, baby; don’t look. Don’t look. Oh God, don’t look!_ ’

He looks across the unnatural – infernal – whirling strain of dancers and ice and a sidhe lady has cornered the infamous Winter Knight. Her dress stays on by the grace of God and magic, cut almost to her ass and slipping loose around her shoulders, her breasts, her flanks. Barely there except to tantalise. Her nails sliding down the ridiculous shirt Dresden is wearing.

Dresden bares his teeth and shifts out from under her hand, supremely uncomfortable and a hair away from striking out.

She merely laughs and follows him, step for step.

It’s a game, a show. There are worse things than death. The worst is survival and Marcone watches with icy calm from his side of the room and Hendricks doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t need to. His presence is enough, as it always had been, even when Hendricks was eighteen and winning scholarships to NYU. Leaving Chicago, leaving the gang. Leaving Johnny.

He’d said ‘ _hell yeah_ ’ and ‘ _go_ ’ and Hendricks had said ‘ _you could come too_ ’ but there’d been nothing else for Johnny but Chicago. His mother’s grave, his neighbourhood. Never finished high school, never worked an honest day in his life. Four months in juvie and what else was he supposed to do?

Hendricks had almost made it out and Johnny had seen him off. Been cool and remote and sneered all the while he’d slipped a wad of crumpled fifties he’d been saving into Nate’s coat pocket because, what the hell, all those textbooks were going to be expensive, right?

Nate had never known. He’d been jumped on the way out of Johnny’s building. Dragged down an alley because he was still wearing his colours, the stupid son of a bitch. Beaten to a pulp. Broken nose, shoulder, kneecap.

He’d given as good as he’d gotten but six against one was never right. Never fair.

These days, yeah, Hendricks knows how to work the group. Knows how to swing from one to the other, always moving, always watching. Knows how to keep his anger on a slow simmer, never get sloppy. Knows, moreover, that being the biggest, baddest, meanest brick shithouse in the room keeps him safer than philosophy.

Marcone had gone to the hospital.

Nate’s parents had sent him away. “Stay away from my boy, you lowlife piece of shit.”

‘ _Piece of shit whore. Fucking stop crying or I’ll give you something to fucking cry about_ ’.

He’d worked it out on the bastards who’d had it coming. No point being angry at emotional responses. People will feel as they feel. And could he blame them? Could he say it wasn’t his fault?

Scholarship gone, New York gone, and when Nate had spent enough time throwing himself at the walls in a blind rage against the world, Johnny had given him a gun and said, “Got a job for us.”

These days, Nate holds him back.

Doesn’t need to touch. Doesn’t even need to speak.

A weakness turned weapon.

Across the room Dresden looks bored and annoyed, mouth spitting words out that Marcone doesn’t need to hear because Dresden’s also tense. Too tense. Too keyed up.

And Marcone can’t help. Lost in a world where he has so little power.

“Find me a way,” he murmurs. But it’s not an order. It’s broken and desperate and Hendricks says nothing. Can say nothing. There is no way for Hendricks to stop him battering himself against this wall.

Then the Winter Lady intervenes. Grabs the sidhe away from the Winter Knight and wraps a terrible, unwavering hand in her long dark hair before physically dragging her onto the dancefloor.

The writhing, twisting grind of bodies the Carpenter girl instigates is more suited to certain underground clubs that Marcone keeps off his books but the dancers only smirk, cats-eyes shining with odd, attentive delight while one of their own gets manhandled like she’s nothing but a toy.

Across the room Dresden looks furious. And sad.

Marcone makes an aborted step forward and turns away. Almost magically a sidhe gentleman appears, hands out, all grace and elegance.

A mortal girl follows behind him. Ridiculously gorgeous and young and sweetly naive. Unexpectedly demurely dressed.

“I thought she would please you, Baron,” the sidhe lord says smugly.

“She pleases me,” the Baron says, and takes her onto the dance floor.

It nonplusses the lord to see a bare, simple, unemotional waltz. To see no sign of lust or attraction. A bland smile from the bland mortal and Marcone knows the faerie can force the issue. Could use a glamour, could use a potion, could use any number of subtle and unsubtle ways to force him into revealing his weakness.

And he doesn’t hide it. One day someone will see it.

But it won’t be this child, who relaxes when she realises that he doesn’t want to hurt her. Who smiles shyly and confidingly, even in the face of his remote, slightly bored good manners. This child who tries so hard to tempt him but can’t.

“I-I thought... perhaps I could please you, my lord.”

‘ _Johnny, I’m sorry. I just don’t swing that way. But I’ll watch your back, protect you. Hey, if-if you want, if you find someone, I can, you know, cover for you..._ ’

“You will,” he says, with a hint of dark promise.

She shivers at his tone, even in this hall full of those to whom dangerous promises are mere creative licence, and she doesn’t realise that he means she will serve him in ways she hasn’t yet contemplated.

‘ _If you want to learn the business, you gotta talk to the little guys. The ones no one sees. The ones they forget are in the goddamn room. That’s your ticket, Johnny boy. The underdogs. You buy them, they’ll fucking kill for you._ ’

She will kill for him. He will see to it.

Over her shoulder he catches sight of Dresden and his new Winter Lady. He’s saying something, gesturing. His face is hard but there is a touch of something barely hidden under it. It takes Marcone a second but he sees the grief, the sadness. The fear.

Dresden’s afraid of what the girl’s become. He’s afraid of her, for her, about her. He’s afraid of what her role in all this will be.

Marcone had once called it a war, and Helen Demeter had asked, “What war? War against whom?”

He’d looked at her, this woman he’d been watching since the first day she’d played him. He’d let her, hoping to win her allegiance like the others, but he’d known that day, looking at her, that she hadn’t fallen. Simply because she hadn’t understood.

Hendricks does. Gard, not privy to his background and his thoughts, she understands. Dresden’s ragtag band of friends understand. Perhaps the sidhe would understand, if they cared to climb down their ivory mountains to see the threat rising up in the mortal world.

Vadderung understands. Doesn’t agree, but understands.

It’s a war against the world.

And Harry? Well. Dresden is his weakness.

But in a war, every weakness, even his own, is capable of being a weapon.


End file.
